Monday, March 25, 2013

I have to apologize to my evil minions. I didn't think their sales pitch would work but yesterday my book SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS shot up to #45 in Amazon's Sci-Fi Adventure category. So they must be really selling the hell out of it.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

In case anyone didn't know my new book: SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS is free this week on Amazon. It is already #94 for free adventure ebook in Kindle store.

One thing that writers hate is Marketing, I'll share some Marketing tactics that didn't work for me.

SOCKPUPPETS:

I can see why this doesn't work. I grabbed a Sock and made a puppet out of it. I started talking to it about my book. I'm getting all excited telling the sock about my book when he interrupts me and tells me socks don't read.

I told him socks don't talk either.

He asked me how I was hearing him if he can't talk.

I didn't have a response, so I said he was an insane piece of cotton that was born in a sweatshop.

We got in a yelling match over who was more evil, the product of a sweatshop or the consumer who buys the product.

Finally my wife came in and broke up the argument. She put the sock in the sock drawer as time-out and made me write on my next novel as my time out.

LESSON LEARNED: If you are going to talk to a Sockpuppet about your book, make sure you find a friendly one.

ANNOYING E-MAIL CAMPAINS:

I thought about emailing everyone I know saying, “Buy my book”. As a former marketing guy I know the importance of testing these things first. So the first email I sent was to myself. I proudly hit send and went back to look at the copy of what I had written. Then I got an email interrupting me. It was from Darrell B. Nelson asking me to buy his latest book.

Annoyed at being interrupted I emailed him back saying to stop Spamming me.

Looking at the results of my first test, I found 100% of the people I sent emails to asked me to stop with the spam.

SENDING OUT A SALES FORCE:

I gathered my evil minions and told them to tell everyone about my book. I was just about to set them loose to spread the word, when I remembered that I should try a role playing exercise. I pretended to be the customer and listened to their pitch.

“Meow.”

Okay that's good, but doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. Let's try again:

“Purrrrr.”

Still not mentioning the product enough, but it was really cute.

Then they started needing ear rubs and petting. Before I knew it the afternoon was gone.

Looking at the numbers, sending out evil minions didn't really help with sales.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Surely, Darrell B. Nelson must have abducted Whitney Strieber, Carl Hiaasen, and Larry Flint together, force fed them lysergic laced pizza for days before recording their collaborative ramblings to produce his next offering: Showgirls and Aliens. Nelson's latest story is a hippie trip of swirling vortices. Who else could combine the black latex logic of 1983's TV series "V", the comical hysteria of aliens run amok found in the first MIB, and a stripper with a heart of gold? Now, add a bouncer with a paladin complex and an ancient bisexual reptilian alien overlord with an ovipositor the size of a Mack truck, and you begin to wonder if the brownie you are munching on tastes a little 'green.' Nelson's imagination streams off the page in multi-colored trailers only to be chased by the chrome gnats of horror from his sophomore effort in the "Vekman Series."

PS - Darrell, I found this amusing anecdote shoved on a shelf in a local Florida food co-op next to the homemade brownie mix and the patchouli spritzers.

To celebrate I'm giving away copies of the Vekman series. Starting at midnight tonight you can download SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS for free at Amazon

By giving these books away I have two sinister motives. First, like a drug dealer I give out free samples to (hopefully) get people hooked on my writing. Second, If you like one or both books I'd love it if you would leave a comment at either Amazon or Smashwords.

The less sinister motive, I get a kick out of brightening people's day if I can get a few people to chuckle for a few hours it's worth it.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Last election the GOP's popularity among women voters were hurt by statements from Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin and Richard “Even more offensive” Mourdock. To counter claims of the GOP's “War on Women” Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona) has come up with an even more offensive talking point, banning sex selection abortions.

Besides the fact that it is impossible to know someones true intent, and that 95% of abortions take place before the sex can be determined, and statistics show that if women in the US do use abortions for sex selection there are too few to be measured. It's just damn insulting.

The premise of using abortion to get rid of girls and only have boys is this: Mother's would prefer a son because women are treated unequally in society through laws that don't even allow them to have a say in what happens with their own bodies, therefore we need to pass laws that don't allow women to have a say in what happens to their own bodies. It's a Mobius Strip of an insult, the “solution” leads to the problem.

It's so insulting that as guy, I'm insulted.

There are places were using abortions to select the gender either was a problem or still is. For a couple decades in China after the one couple one child law started, it was a problem. Now with a generation of middle aged men desperate for women, and greater freedom for women, daughters are being prized in China.

In the Middle-East, Filicide isn't unheard of. That's in countries that treat women as property.

If you are really concerned with this non-problem, there is a simple solution: Give women equal opportunity as men.

So to the GOP, I will give some free advice on how not insult women over the abortion topic. State your feelings about it and stop. If you start going into pseudo-science and speculation about legitimate rape and sex selection abortion then: Shut-up Stupid, if necessary grab a pencil and stab it in your eye! Anything beyond personal opinion and feelings is bound to be insulting.

Monday, March 4, 2013

In my last poll, Kindle users said they would like to download SHOWGIRLS AND ALIENS (a dessert topping). I was going to use that as the lead for it's page on Amazon, however in the terms and conditions it is expressly forbidden to name the page anything but the title of the novel. So I would have to change the title and the coverart and everything.

But I think it still looks good.

On to the next poll:

Two of the greatest slasher movie villains for the past 30 years are Halloween's Micheal Myers and Friday the 13th's Jason. Except for Friday the 13th Part 2, they both used the same style, Low and Slow, not great for speed but high torque. They are the Diesel engines of serial killers.

Unfortunately they have never been in the same movie, so we don't know who is faster. Obviously they have some conditional advantages. Micheal is slow on level surfaces, but he seems to have the ability to teleport to different floors in a building. Jason slowly walks after his prey in the woods but he knows every shortcut so he can take one and appear in front of them.

But I wonder, in a straight out foot race with no shortcuts or teleportation allowed who would win.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Last Thursday Rachel Maddow stopped by the Daily Show and she and Jon talked about Justice Antonin Scalia talking about the Voting Rights act, "Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes,"

Basically saying that Blacks voting is a “racial entitlement”.

Maddow commented:

"He's a troll. He's saying this for effect. He knows it's offensive and he knows he's going to get a gasp from the courtroom, which he got, and he loves it. He's like the guy on your blog comment thread who is using the n-word. 'Oh, it made you mad? How about if I say this? Does it make you mad? Did it make you mad? Did it make you mad?' He's that guy! He's that kind of guy! When we're all shocked that he said something so blatantly racially offensive while talking about the cornerstone of the federal Civil Rights Act, he's thinking, 'Oh yeah!'"

So Maddow is saying that Scalia isn't actually a racist, he just throws out racist comments to get a reaction. Naturally FOX news took offense to someone implying that Scalia isn't a racist. So Megyn Kelly had to chime in:

“I personally object to that kind of language against the Supreme Court justice. I don't think it does anybody any good. I think they vote their consciences up there whether they're left or right.”

First off Megyn, Maddow didn't say anything about how Scalia ends up voting, she was talking about his comments during oral arguments.

Second, how in the hell is being called a troll worse than being a racist?

Finally, Maddow was commenting on the look on Scalia's face as he throws out clearly offensive comments and leans back with a smug look on his face. If you've watched him give an interview you've seen that look. Maddow doesn't claim to be a mind reader, and she's commenting on what Scalia is thinking. Making it opinion nothing more and nothing less.

It's like if I were to say, Megyn Kelly must have watched that clip an said, “Oh yeah, here are two people, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, who are crushing me in the ratings talking about something clearly offensive. I can use that to pump up my ratings which are dropping like a stone.”

Everyone should know that I can't read minds, so that paragraph is my opinion nothing more and nothing less.

So to Megyn Kelly for standing up and objecting to people assuming someone isn't a racist, and challenging their virtue of being a racist, all I can do is repeat Anthony Wiener's comment on your interviewing skills, “Aces!”

About Your Host

I am slowly combining my two personalities Project Savior, known on the internet for writing comments and posts and Darrell B. Nelson the semi-professional author who has had his work published in Ray Gun Revival, Distant Worlds, AlienSkin Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Cynic Magazine and the author of the collection of short stories “I Killed the Man That Wasn't There”.
Feel free to laugh with me, or at me, as I merge these two personalities in a whole being. Feel free to email me at project.savior (at) yahoo (period) com.